Note 1. Bowdoin was born in Boston in 1727. He received his education at Harvard College, and at an early period of life was appointed to many public offices of importance. In 1775 he became President of the Council of Massachusetts, and remained in that station till the adoption of the State Constitution in 1780. He was President of the Convention which formed the constitution of Massachusetts, and in 1785 and 1786, was Governor of the State. He died in 1790. He was a man of extensive literary attainments, and was honored with a Doctors degree from several European universities, and created a member of the Royal Societies of London and Dublin. He wrote much on philosophical subjects, and was a principal agent in forming the American Academy of Arts and Sciences at Boston. He was the first President of this institution, and bequeathed it a valuable legacy. Among his various pursuits he also cultivated poetry. He contributed to the Pietas et Gratulatio, but his principal work of this kind is an enlarged paraphrase of The Economy of Human Life, published at Boston in 1759. He had a respectable talent as a versifier, though his poetry displays little inventive faculty. [back]